One & Only (Canton) (28 page)

But he just shrugged and ignored all my nudges to go out in the hall and talk while the rest of the presentations went on.

I thought we might have a chance to speak after the formal portion of the symposium ended, but we were soon accosted by professors and other onlookers filled with questions. We spent a good half an hour clarifying and defending our work, especially to members of the jury panel from Canton Chem, who expressed great surprise that we’d picked a subject outside of the field of biomed.

“Risky,” said one, skeptical.

“Ballsy,” corrected another.

We didn’t get a moment’s privacy until the jury retired to discuss their rankings and the cocktail hour commenced. I bypassed the trays of canapes and plastic glasses of wine and tracked down my partner. He was deep in conversation with Kathleen Hamilton, that Canton Chem VP he’d brought to Verde that time. We made chitchat for a good fifteen minutes before I wrested Dylan away.

“I think this is the time we should be schmoozing,” he pointed out as I pulled him into a quiet corner.

“Where did those new graphics come from?” I pressed. “You think you have free rein to keep secrets now? You almost screwed me up out there!”

“The graphics come from me now owing an enormous favor to my sister,” he said with a sigh. “She’s got a master’s in animation and she pretty much lived with me on Skype for the past day and a half in order to get them done on time.”

“Why?” I asked. “The charts we had were fine.”

“
Fine
doesn’t win you five thousand dollars, Tess.” He looked at me. “The last time you didn’t have the money you needed to go to Canton, I lost you for two years. I can’t risk that again.”

It was like a thunderclap to my heart. I’d thought he hated me for lying. I’d thought he was avoiding me because he felt betrayed. But really he was spending every spare second making sure we didn’t lose. I didn’t know what to say. I simply reached out and laid my hand over his. “You wouldn’t,” I said. “Not now.”

But Dylan went on like he hadn’t heard me. “And we especially can’t let your father win.”

“What?”

“All this time I thought you had a deadbeat dad, and that’s why you were on scholarship. Turns out it’s true, only he’s a bigger deadbeat than I could have ever imagined.”

I stared at him in awe. “I thought you were mad.”

“Are you kidding? I’m
furious
.” Beneath my palm, his hand had closed into a fist. “If my father wouldn’t have had to take several days off work to travel here, he’d be sitting in this audience right now.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant. And now I know why you keep doubting our future every time we have some dumb fight. You can’t even count on your own father.”

“That’s not—”

“Your dad’s here in town, it’s a huge crowd, he’s a Canton alum and booster, no one would even blink if he showed up tonight, and yet you and I both know he would never come.”

“He was in an accident…” I trailed off. The words sounded hollow in my mouth. Why did I keep making excuses for him?

“Were you expecting him to come before?”

“No,” I admitted.

“He’s got all the money in the world and he won’t give you any for your education. You’re working every night you can and trying to earn extra scholarships on the side and you’re living with your mother and
none
of this is necessary. I’ve been to your father’s house. He could find five thousand dollars in the couch cushions.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but Dad’s money comes with Dad’s rules. That’s how I ended up at State for two years.”

“So that’s it,” he hissed. “I thought maybe it was. Why didn’t he want you to go to Canton?”

“Too expensive.”

“Lies.”

I nodded. Yes, yes it was. I’d known that, even at eighteen. “You know why.”

Dylan said nothing for a while. Then, “You know, you were still following his rules, even after you came back here.”

I felt as if my breath had been knocked out of me.
No
, I wanted to shout at him.
It was breaking the rules to be with you, to steal Hannah’s boyfriend. It was breaking the rules to go to the hospital the other night.
“That’s different. Canton is about me, about what I want from my life. Exposing him—that’s about
his
life.”

“Bullshit,” Dylan scoffed. “He’s made you lie your entire life to protect his money, and he won’t even share it with you. He takes advantage of you and your mother, of Hannah and her mother…” He clenched his jaw. “He’s a liar, Tess. And he’s made us both into liars—for
him
. It’s about our lives, too.”

The panelists got back up on the stage, and the lights flickered, indicating they were ready to announce the winners.

“Tell me,” Dylan whispered in my ear as the noise of the crowd settled. “What bad thing would happen to you if people knew your secret?”

“I’d lose him.” It was the truth. The only truth to live behind a lifetime of lies. “I know you don’t think he’s much of a father, but he’s the only one I’ve got.” I caught sight of my mother approaching, wineglass in hand. She beamed at me. My mother, so proud of me. My mother, so weak. “And she’d lose him, too.”

Dylan followed the path of my gaze. “Fair enough,” he said. “You can only make decisions for yourself, not your mom. But maybe it’s time for your mom to pick a side, too.”

There was a rash of feedback as Dr. Cavel fiddled with the mic, and everyone fell silent. “I want to thank you all for your participation this evening.”

My mom had arrived by my side. She leaned in. “Is that one of your professors? She’s very pretty.”

“Yeah, Mom,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “Plus, she’s got a PhD and a Sloan Fellowship.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Dylan stiffen. I could practically hear the pieces clicking into place in his brain. At last he understood why I thought it was nice he thought I was beautiful, but not as important as everything else.

I thought of what Mom would do without the crutch of my father to lean on. If she’d have to get serious about her art or the jobs she took on. I thought of the time she’d agreed with my father about sending me to State instead of Canton. And I thought about what she’d said the other morning, after my dad had gotten out of the hospital, still angry I’d dare to visit him there.
Your father and I disagree on this matter.
Maybe things
could
change.

“As you know,” Dr. Cavel went on, “the First Semester Design Symposium is one of the most prestigious competitions for bioengineering students here at Canton, and I’m so pleased that this year’s crop of projects has been one of the most competitive and impressive yet. Every student who has presented tonight should be extremely proud of the work they’ve accomplished this semester and of their contributions to this growing field. I look forward to see what you bring us in the new year.”

There was a smattering of applause.

“And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The winner of the symposium, and the recipient of the five-thousand-dollar grand prize is…” She paused. I breathed. Dylan grabbed my hand. “Elaine Sun, for her work in Targeting Drug-Loaded Nanoparticles to Prostate Cancer Cells Using the PD36 Minibody.”

All the bones in my body turned to swizzle sticks. I slumped. My hand went wet fish in Dylan’s. We’d lost. We’d lost?

“Clap,” he whispered. “She’s your friend.”

So I clapped. Tears burned my eyes as I clapped for Elaine. She stepped up on the stage, her smile bigger than I’d ever seen, to accept her plaque and the envelope with her check. She and Dr. Cavel smiled for the pictures.

I was happy for her. I was. I certainly wasn’t going to be as sore a loser as she’d been back when Dylan had beaten her freshman year. Elaine had also been working her ass off, and she deserved recognition for that. She’d played fair, too, giving us all the lab time we’d needed, in the end. It wasn’t her fault we’d lost.

Dr. Yue came up behind us. “Better luck next time, you two. It was a great podium presentation, but biofuel is a tough nut to crack at Canton. Half the jurors are from Chem and they don’t give a crap about anything they can’t package in a pill.”

I nodded, trying to look staid. To most entrants, this was just a minor disappointment—oh well, one little bullet point that didn’t make it on their resume. Back to studying for finals.

Of course, it was so much harder to study for finals if you still weren’t sure how to pay for the books in your hands.

I was going to have to take a semester off. That was the only option. I could work a few jobs, build up some reserves in my bank account—maybe they would hold my scholarship. Maybe I could take out a few more loans. A few more.

The clapping went on and on, rising like a storm, matching the rush of blood in my ears.

“You want to get out of here?” Dylan was saying to me, but I could barely make out the words.

I shook my head miserably. I didn’t have time to hang out with my boyfriend, to have long talks about where this was all going. It was going nowhere.
I
was going nowhere.

I pulled away from him, mumbled to my mother that I’d see her back at home, and left the hall. It was raining now, freezing cold drops spitting down from the sky. I got in my car, tore off my suit jacket, and yanked every last goddamn pin out of my hair. Nice clothes hadn’t done the trick, and neither had sexy librarian or fancy animated graphics or impeccable science. If they only wanted to give their prize to biomed, they should have expressed that in the rules.

Stupid Canton and their stupid expensive, best-in-the-country program. I hated it. It had ruined me. All of Dylan’s fantasies of the scientific power couple were revealed for what they were: dreams. I couldn’t afford Canton, even with the academic scholarship. And Colorado? Ha. It would take me
two
jobs this summer to work my way out of the hole I’d dug in a single semester. And I still had the spring semester looming ahead, with new books, new fees, new bills.

“Three jobs,” I murmured to no one in particular as I drove off the campus. I’d always had to fight, hadn’t I? If it took losing a semester of credits, if it took moving in with my mother—I’d done everything else to have Canton. I could do three jobs, too.

And there was no time like the present, was there? I’d been lax in my shifts at Verde recently, prioritizing study time over my job. Oh, who was I kidding? It was only when it was study time with Dylan that I’d blown off work. I’d rationalized that if Dylan and I worked hard enough, we’d win the symposium, and I’d make up all those lost tips in one fell swoop.

Well, it was time to face facts. Girls like me didn’t get breaks like that. No, we were Sylvia, waiting tables and performing at campus coffee shops and never leaving this town for New York or Nashville or LA or wherever it was singers actually got jobs singing. We were my mother, who swore she loved art but would settle for beauty. I could have Canton, but not unless I let it wear me down.

Why waste time? I had so much money to make and so little time to do it. Maybe they needed an extra hand at Verde tonight. I made a U-turn and started heading to the restaurant. Screw the fact that I’d left my uniform at home. Who cared that I was wearing pumps instead of standard-issue waitress sneakers? I’d been an idiot to expect my life at Canton would be one of fancy, science-symposium afterparties. I had tables to bus and drinks to pour.

I walked into Verde, and Sylvia sprinted to my side.

“What are you doing here!” she said under her breath. “I told you not to come in.”

I made a face. “No, you said you didn’t need me this week.” Verde was decorated for the holidays, with sparkly lights dripping down from all the trees in the atrium.

“That was a heavy hint,” she replied. “Now, out of here, quick, before she sees you.”

“Who?” I asked, but then I saw her, her back ramrod straight in the booth, her hair falling like liquid gold down her back.

Hannah.

TWENTY-FOUR

“She’s been coming here and asking for you.” Sylvia wrung her hands. “Since yesterday. I can’t get rid of her. She’s polite and she orders and Bill says unless she causes a scene we can’t refuse service.”

I looked over the tops of the booths at our customer. Verde was quiet tonight. Most people were probably studying.

“Well,” I said. “She
is
a regular.”

Hannah saw me. She didn’t wave. She didn’t smile. She just sat there, like a princess waiting to receive her audience. And God help me, I started walking over. I held onto the silver T like a talisman, like it could ward off the worst of her wrath. I’d never meant to hurt her.

“Tess, don’t,” said Sylvia. “I’m serious. What if she does have a vial of acid in her purse—”

I waved her off, uninterested in Sylvia’s theories. I arrived at the booth. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she replied. “Have a seat?”

I slid onto the bench seat across from her. It was odd, being so close. Hannah was shorter than me and thinner, too. Her skin was a gorgeous peaches and cream, her hair was straight as rainfall, and her eyes were like looking in a mirror.

“So…,” I said. “My friend thinks you’re here to attack me for stealing your boyfriend.”

There was the tiniest twitch on her polished, aristocratic expression, but it was gone in an instant. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t even know you knew I worked here.” And I wasn’t sure how it made me feel, either. I’d spent most of my life believing it absolutely vital that Hannah Swift never thought about me at all.

“Dylan told me. He talked about you a lot.” She gave a small, self-mocking laugh. “Should have known, right?” She waved down a server. “Would you like something to drink? I have to order something every half-hour or they kick me out.”

“What do you want from me, Hannah?”

But Hannah just smiled at our server, a guy named Phil I didn’t know very well, and ordered two iced teas. Once he was gone, she spent a great deal of time rearranging the cocktail napkins on the table.

“You’ve apparently been hanging out here looking for me,” I continued.